Family Rescued From Nevada Mountain Did Everything Right To Stay Alive

RENO, Nevada (Reuters) - A couple and four young
children missing in frigid weather since they went on an outing
to play in the snow on Sunday were found alive in a remote
mountain range in Nevada on Tuesday huddled in their
overturned vehicle, a sheriff's dispatch supervisor said.

The couple had taken their two children and the woman's niece and
nephew, who range in age from 3 to 10, to an abandoned mining
camp in the Seven Troughs range of northwestern
Nevada, Pershing County dispatch supervisor Sheila
Reitz said.

The six were found in good condition and were treated for
exposure and dehydration at the Pershing General
Hospital in Lovelock, Nevada, said Patty
Bianchi, chief executive officer of the facility. They did not
have frostbite, she said.

A doctor at the hospital told reporters the six family members
were doing "remarkably well" considering their ordeal.

"They did a lot of things right by staying with the vehicle, and
they did have food and water available with them, and as soon as
the vehicle suffered this slow rollover accident, the father
jumped into action," Dr. Douglas Vacek added.

He "knew that they had to stay warm, and the first thing he did
was build a fire and he was able to keep that fire going the
entire time while they were out."

They also told hospital staff they brought stones heated in the
fire into the vehicle to stay warm, Bianchi said.

Reitz identified the adults as James Glanton, 34,
and Christina McIntee, 25. The children were identified as
Shelby Schlag-Fitzpatrick, 10, Tate McIntee, 4, and Evan
and Chloe Glanton, ages 5 and 3.

When the group did not return home, a wide-scale rescue operation
was launched, backed by helicopters and airplanes. Fears grew for
their fate, with unseasonably cold temperatures plunging to minus
21 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 29 Celsius) on Sunday night and
remaining well below freezing the following night.

On Tuesday, a volunteer rescuer using binoculars spotted the
couple's overturned Jeep in a gravel pit about 17 miles
from the town of Lovelock, said Paul Burke, search and
rescue coordinator for the state of Nevada.

Rescuers, who narrowed the search area in part by tracking
cellphone signals, credited the group's survival in large part to
the family hunkering down together instead of setting out in
search of help.

"Everybody is looking at this like it's a miracle,"
said Gail Powell, spokeswoman for
the Nevada Division of Emergency Management. "They were
savvy enough to figure out what to do to stay alive but everybody
was quite concerned because temperatures hovered so low."

It remained unclear when the six people might be able to leave
the hospital, Bianchi said.